Nader Gets Respect In New Hampshire

Nader Attracts Crowds In Primary Campaign

January 25, 1992|By DAVID LIGHTMAN; Washington Bureau Chief

CLAREMONT, N.H. — In a political era in which 30-second messages sell candidates and personal appearances are staged so they provide good television pictures, Ralph Nader seems to come from a different planet.

The Winsted, Conn., native comes to New Hampshire's towns and speaks for several hours. There are no applause lines -- and there's no applause. He stays at the podium until he answers every question, then stands in the hall and answers more.

He wants voters in the nation's first primary to send the more mainstream candidates a message that people will not stand for government and politics as usual. He wants people to write in his name as president, but tells them he is uncomfortable with the idea.

His speeches are not easy to follow. There are few if any jokes, and he seems to make many points over and over. The closest he gets to being colorful is comparing the current crop of candidates to apples and bananas.

"You have a right to eat a ripe apple or banana," Nader says. "These candidates aren't ripe, yet. They are crude and superficial."

Yet the 57-year-old Nader thus far is the surprise story of the 1992 New Hampshire primary. Everywhere he goes, he outdraws the big-name candidates, and he plans to return for more appearances next weekend. On a recent snowy afternoon in Claremont, a typically depressed New Hampshire town in the state's southwestern corner, about 300 people showed up -- so many there was no space left along the walls to stand, let alone sit.

To many of these people, Nader is a hero. The king of consumerism, he gained fame in the 1960s when he exposed the dangers of General Motors' Corvair. He has since built a network of state public-interest research groups and Washington organizations that fight for consumer causes, and most recently battled Congress over its pay raise.

Traditional political observers find Nader's appeal here puzzling, but are not worried about Nader as a threat.

"I'm not picking up support for him anywhere," said Stanley Greenberg, the Washington- and New Haven-based pollster for the

Democratic front-runner, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton.

Russell Verney, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said Nader draws crowds because he is a celebrity in a field of unknowns. "People have a tremendous amount of respect for him, but I don't think they come away saying they'll vote for him," Verney said.

Verney's analysis seems correct. Most polls put Nader's support around 1 percent to 2 percent. Cyrus Mehri of Connecticut, one of Nader's top aides, said the campaign expects to get about that much of the vote.

The future of Nader's campaign after New Hampshire is uncertain. He will be on the March 10 Massachusetts Democratic Party ballot, but did not ask to be on the Connecticut ballot two weeks after that, on March 24.

What Nader wants to do is send a tough message to both Republican and Democratic politicians, since his name can be written in on either party's ballot. In his speeches, he rails at a government in which officials are not only too entrenched, but too tied to corporate interests.

He criticizes Congress' pay increase. He wants congressional term limits. He urges public financing of all campaigns. He wants voters to have the option of voting "none of the above."

If they could, and "none of the above" won, a new election would have to be held.

"Right now, the candidates are telling you if you don't like us, stay home," Nader says. "None of the above says if you don't become a candidate who gives us a real choice, we're going to vote no and cancel you out."

He offers vivid examples of government gone wrong. He points to a little boy in the audience, and says, "This little child over here will pay till he's 40" for the savings and loan industry bailout.

"Look who failed to stop the S & Ls," Nader says, "corporate law firms, accounting firms, banks' boards of directors, federal regulatory agencies, the White House -- they all took a dive."

It was "outright corporate crime," he says, "and who's left with the bill? The taxpayers."

There are no cheers or whoops. The audience is a hard-to-easily-define mix of young and old, college students handing out leaflets and elderly couples silently nodding their heads.

No one leaves during the two hours Nader speaks. When he finishes, they respectfully ask questions. Today, he gets one about how education should be funded.

Nader gives detailed answers, even if he has no answer. "Unlike many politicians, I don't have an informed opinion on every subject," he tells the questioner. But he goes on anyway, saying good education is not just a matter of money, but of subject choice.

"We've got to get students to be informed citizens," he says. "Teach 'em about taxes; don't just have them read a civics book."

The crowd is a mixture of fans and stargazers. Susan Lawrence was chairwoman of the local Democratic Party and a state legislator, and likes what she hears.